Vulcan Cotopaxi

The last four days we spent near the volcano Cotopaxi. At almost 5900 meters, it's one of the highest active volcanoes in the world. Luckily it hasn't done much in the last few years. The volcano is at the center of one of Ecuador's national parks, just south of Quito. We stayed at Secret Garden Cotopaxi, which is the second hostel by the folks at Secret Garden Quito. We got a nice $5/person deal on the taxi between the hostels (it normally costs at least $40 to get a ride up). The ride from Quito takes about two hours, one on the Panamericana highway and then another on the cobbled (and not-so-cobbled) roads up to the mountains. The hostel is at the base of Pasochoa, one of the many mountains within view of Cotopaxi.

It was cloudy when we got there, and we couldn't see any mountains. We were told the view is best around 5:30 am (around dawn), so when the sun came in the windows the next day we took a look. Socked in fog. Ah well. We opted for the horse riding trip for the morning. The ride was...interesting. The gear for the horses varied widely. Some saddles had actual stirrups, about half (including both of ours) had wooden blocks that looked like sawed-off clogs. One set you could get your foot into if you had someone push it in (it was a tight fit, try not to need to fall off) and the other one only allowed your toes to be inside. The ride was along the 3 km driveway to the main road (whoo!), then along the cobbled road (horses don't like cobbles), then finally off the main road for a short bit along a dirt road past another hostel nearby. Not exactly an inspired route. Along the road, one horse threw its rider and fell (perhaps in the other order) when a truck went by. Holy cow! Except later the "guide" for the trip said "o yeah, that horse is afraid of cars. that happens all the time." Can you say "don't send that horse out with a rider"? Things got worse from there.

Aaron's horse was not having a good time; specifically he really wanted the bit out of his mouth. And he liked to run. And he had the "only your toes fit in here" stirrups. When the group finally got to the dirt road, the lead horses galloped off. Galloping doesn't agree with crappy stirrups, and soon there was a stirrup-less rider. Ouch. Reining the horse in seemed to piss him off (remember we think something was wrong either with the fit of the bit or the mouth of the horse). Eventually he tried to buck his rider off. Aaron got him slowed down enough to find a stirrup, got off, and walked the rest of the way to the snack break (where everyone else had galloped off to). Incidentally the horse was really friendly when you weren't jamming a metal rod in his mouth.

After the snack break we switched horses. Maybe that horse just didn't like Aaron. We also told the guide that the horse was not having a good time and tried to throw me, but he didn't seem concerned. Things got worse from there. This horse didn't like Hilary either, and by now his mouth really hurt. Luckily a good bit of the trail back was along the road, so the horses were forced to go slowly. Once we got to the driveway, the lead horses went ahead to run back. We stayed behind with the guide to go more slowly. However, he started trotting his horse. The other horses trotted; Hilary's feet came out of the stirrups; the horse got reined in; the horse tried to eject the rider. After several minutes of actual pleading and yelling at the guide, we got him to stop his horse long enough for Hilary to get off. We walked the last 1.5 km back to the hostel. Again this was recounted to the staff and met without concern. 4 of 8 riders walked back off their horses--apparently this is normal? [Talking to folks who went out in groups of 4 or less however, the riding experience is very good. Just don't be those guests 5+.]

The next day we were extremely sore and bruised. Various clasps and buckles had left bruises on our legs and the experience of riding with terrible gear had really messed us up. Aaron was feeling a little stomach-ugly again, so Hilary went for a short walk to a nearby waterfall while he hung out with the staff and practiced conversational Spanish. The clouds were higher up and we got some pictures of Cotopaxi.

The next day we took the hike to Pasochoa, a small mountain topping off at only 4200 meters. The hostel sat at 3500 m, so we had only to walk out back and climb. Hiking at altitude was quite an experience, even though we'd spent 9 days at 2800+ m  in Quito and the last several at 3500 m. It was a good hike though.

The hostel filled up that night, buoyed by folks who couldn't get to Banos since the road washed out at some point during the day. That of course solidified our plans to go to Latacunga before Banos, and we booked a hostel and arranged a taxi for the next morning.